Roundup: UN agencies report worsening situation in South Sudan

The United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR) reported that with new fighting erupting in Juba, the situation in South Sudan has been getting increasingly tense, UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric told reporters here Tuesday.

"Refugee flows from South Sudan into Uganda have doubled in the past 10 days," Dujarric said at a daily news briefing here, citing reports from the UN agency.

Kenya has reported the arrival of 1,000 refugees in the same period, while 7,000 have fled to Sudan, according to the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).

Some 60,000 people have fled South Sudan's recent violence in the capital of Juba, bringing the overall number of South Sudanese refugees in neighboring countries since December 2013 to nearly 900,000, the UNHCR report said.

UNHCR is helping some 52,000 people who have fled to Uganda, including an increasing number of severely malnourished children, said Dujarric.

"The refugees say armed groups on roads to Uganda were preventing more people from fleeing South Sudan in anticipation of a renewed conflict between rebel and government forces," the spokesman said. "The armed groups were looting villages, murdering civilians and forcibly recruiting young men and boys into their ranks."

The World Health Organization (WHO) said that inside South Sudan an outbreak of cholera had caused 21 deaths by the end of July, he said. Some 586 cases have been reported, with an average of 35 new hospital admissions every day.

Also on Tuesday, the UN under-secretary-general for humanitarian affairs, Stephen O'Brien, is in South Sudan to visit some of the affected people and renew his call for funding, Dujarric said.

O'Brien, who is also the UN emergency relief coordinator, also said that humanitarian workers are driven by humanitarian needs. They operate on the basis of independence, impartiality and neutrality, and must be given free, unimpeded access to reach all people in need, wherever they may be.

Meanwhile, the underlined the importance of partnerships and coordination with the government and relief actors on the ground, stressing that harnessing such partnership further strengthens the humanitarian support and makes it more cost effective.

The humanitarian response plan inside South Sudan has asked for almost 1.3 billion U.S. dollars, but it is only 40 percent funded, Dujarric said.

There are 1.61 million internally displaced people inside the country and estimated 4.8 million people there are food insecure, he said.

With more than 2.6 million of its citizens forcibly displaced, the world's youngest nation currently ranks among the countries with the highest levels of conflict-induced population displacement globally, the United Nations said, warning that half the population relies on humanitarian aid.

South Sudan was founded in July 2011, after it gained independence from Sudan. The country descended into conflict in December 2013 due to internal struggles between rival factions.

The recent fighting between rival forces -- the Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA) loyal to President Salva Kiir and the SPLA in Opposition backing First Vice-President Riek Machar -- erupted in and around Juba on 7 July. The new round of fighting in Juba left some 272 people dead, including 33 civilians. Enditem